She pushed a wisp of hair off her cheek with the back of a spidery hand. ‘If you need to be at the yard, you should go.’
‘I’ll thank you to handle the bandages. But I won’t leave until I’ve seen how Tharrick’s cuts are closing.’ Arithon swung the pot off the hob, arose, and tipped his raven head for Jinesse to pass ahead of him.
The pair entered the sickroom, the widow with her face flushed pink above her blouse and her unburdened hands given to fidgeting with her skirts. Through his days of convalescence, Tharrick had taken quiet pleasure in her presence. She had a certain shy grace in those moments when she believed no one watched. But Arithon set her on edge. His quick, light movement and contained self-command hurled her off course like a moth thrown into strong light.
The bandages provided the excuse she needed to steady herself. Despite her retiring nature, her handling was firm as she lifted the bedclothes to attend her battered charity case. The number and severity of Tharrick’s burns and cuts made even small movement unpleasant. Soothed by her touch, grateful for her gentle care as she used the herb infusion to soak and soften the scabs before she peeled the crusted linen, Tharrick sweated through the undignified process in silence.
Jinesse was not alone in feeling unnerved before the intensity of Arithon’s regard. With the window at his back, his face looked drawn to hollows, the eyes like sharp points sunk in pits. His tone held the edge of a burr, struck from impatience or exhaustion as he said, Stay with the red clover for the burns. That gash on the thigh still looks inflamed. Along with elecampane and cone flower, let’s add wild thyme, and of course, keep on with the betony.’
He began a step to fetch the pastes for the poultices, swayed, and snatched at the windowsill to steady himself.
Jinesse rounded on him, as near as she ever came to scolding. ‘You can’t continue on like this!’
A stunned second passed. Dismayed by her inadvertent boldness, Jinesse trapped a breath behind closed lips. As if to hold off an attack by wild wolves, she clutched the snarl of fouled linen to her breast.
Too tired for temper, stung by her wary fear, Arithon gave way to wide surprise. ‘What choice do I have?’
‘Sit!’ Jinesse snapped. As if the half-naked presence of the invalid on her sheets were of no more account than cut wood, she cast the linens into her laundry hamper, yanked the high-backed chair from beyond the clothes chest, and plunked it on the boards by the windowsill. If you’re too pressed and dirty to attend this job yourself, the very least you’ll do for me is to spend a few minutes off your feet.’
To everyone’s astonishment, most of all his own, the Prince of Rathain did her bidding. Up close, he looked drawn beneath his tan. His hair was caught in pitchy tangles at the temples where he had raked it back with knuckles still smeared from green planks. The thumbnail on his left hand was swollen black, perhaps from a mis-struck mallet. Unable to bear his appearance straight on, the widow threw open the curtains to flush out the cloying reek of herbs.
Breezes off the ocean fingered the loosened laces of Arithon’s shirt. The impersonal touch relaxed him, or else the flood of fresh air. He tipped his crown to rest against the chair back and almost instantly fell asleep.
Tharrick surrendered his chafed wrist to the widow for dressing, and pondered the incongruity; how unlikely it seemed, that a sorcerer of such black reputation could behave in mild, trusting innocence.
To his dismay, he found he had mused his thought aloud.
Jinesse slapped a heated strip of linen over the applied layer of poultice paste brusquely enough to raise a sting. ‘Arithon’s driving himself half to death in that shipyard!’ At Tharrick’s subdued flinch, she gentled her touch with the wrapping. ‘They say he’s not slept in two days beyond catnaps, and Ath show him mercy, just look at his hands! He’s Athera’s own Masterbard, and criminal indeed, to dare risk his gift to common labour!’
Which was near enough to outright accusation. Already miserable, caught vulnerably naked before a benefactor he had not wanted and unable to turn away for the lacerations still open to the air, the burly exile could do nothing else but tip his chin to the wall and shut his eyes.
Jinesse smoothed a wrinkle in the linen, ashamed. ‘I’m sorry.’ She tucked the bandage into itself and spread her hands loose in her lap. ‘Arithon insisted you weren’t at fault, but the setback has gone very hard. Those ships that you burned were the dream of his heart, and now he scarcely speaks for disappointment.’
‘Is he not, then, the felon he is named?’ Tharrick swallowed. ‘Do you think him innocent of all charges?’
The ticking in the mattress whispered as Jinesse sat down. Steam from the pot by her ankle sieved a backdrop like gauze against a profile as thin-skinned and fair. Tendrils of blond hair wisped out of the coiled braid at her nape, atremble in the breeze as she darted a glance at the prince sprawled asleep in her chair. ‘I don’t know.’
Tharrick propped himself on one elbow.
‘How can I tell?’ Jinesse admitted, her divided opinion a palpable weight upon shoulders too frail for harsh judgment. ‘Arithon once charged me to measure him by his behaviour. The villagers here respect him. They might not know him for the Master of Shadow, but they don’t give their trust lightly. Arithon never cheated anyone. Nor has he sheltered behind lies. Except for the music he draws from his heart, no one has seen him work spellcraft.’
She trailed off, her lip pinched between small, tight teeth.
Flat on his back with cracked ribs, and never in his life more helpless, Tharrick was swept by a sharp, sudden urge to protect her. She seemed so slender and torn, alone in this house with no trusted mate to share the rearing of her twins, nor this moment’s pained indecision.
Arithon, perhaps, was perceptive enough to take advantage. Moved to a queer stab of jealousy, Tharrick said, ‘The sorcery that burned Alestron’s armoury killed seven men. I was there.’
The light brushed without sparkle over plain wooden hairpins as Jinesse quickly shook her head. ‘I don’t say he’s blameless, of that or any other accusation laid against him. He’s never made excuses or tried to deny his past actions. His silence is so strict on the subject, if I dared, I would challenge him in frustration.’
‘What do you think?’ pressed Tharrick.
The widow bent, wrung out another dressing, and scooped up a dollop of herb paste. ‘I think this village need not become involved. The Shadow Master took pains to set no roots here. Quite the contrary. He wishes himself at sea to the point where he’s desperate. If he were some dread sorcerer or a minion of evil, I’m doubting he’d need to drive himself to the edge for the sake of a half-built brace of ships.’
The shadow of a gull flicked past the window. Chilled by its passage, Tharrick said, ‘What if he wishes such ships to disrupt the trade of honest men?’
‘Piracy?’ Jinesse looked up, her cupped hands filled with remedies, to stare at Tharrick in shock. ‘Is that what you believe? If it’s true, there’s no thread of evidence. These brigantines weren’t planned for armament. I held the impression they were Arithon’s hope to outrun the bloodshed loosed upon him by the armies from the north.’
The bandaging resumed in stiff silence. Arithon slept on, pliant as a scarecrow, his head tipped aslant and his blistered palms slack against the soiled thighs of his breeches. Jinesse proceeded on her own to mix the
